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Food safety ongoing concern
Focus on food safety following last week’s peanut butter salmonella outbreak, along with a shift to a Democrat controlled Congress, has reignited interest in seeing some or all of the country’s 15 federal agencies governing food products combined into a mega food-safety agency via the Safe Food Act.
“This issue comes up periodically, every year or every other year,” said Larry Sanders, Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension service economist.
Sanders, a specialist in agricultural policy and public affairs, said consolidation of the federal agencies charged with protecting America’s food supply has been proposed for more than a decade.
“It is no secret that there are points of vulnerability in the food chain, especially since we are getting more and more of our food either in raw or value-added product from foreign countries,” he said.
Sanders said U.S. imports totaled more than $650 billion worth of agricultural products in 2006.
“That is more than we have ever imported before. At that level of import, there is certainly potential for disaster to occur,” he said.
Even though concerns with fresh produce and most recently with processed foods in the country, have highlighted food safety concerns, Sanders said the system works.
“We have a relatively high degree of confidence that our food is safe,” he said. “The oversight measures of the United States make our food the safest in the world.”
As an agriculture policy specialist, Sanders said the Safe Food Act bears watching.
Those in favor of the proposed legislation cite a quagmire of political pressure agencies face in upholding policies and regulations concerning the nation’s food, and aim to insulate the policy process from those pressures.
Opponents of the Safe Food Act claim the legislation oversimplifies the complexity of food issues and maintain USDA should remain the primary agency with FDA’s continued interaction and oversight due to that agency’s experience with legal matters and food.
“Do we want to maintain that division or do we want to bring those interests together and try to change the objectives in the best interest of the public? That’s the political debate that will take place as we evaluate this proposal,” Sanders said.The law would create a Food Safety Administration and give it the responsibility of randomly inspecting all food processing plants as well as more oversight over imported foods. The Safe Food Act would also allow the adoption of more stringent standards for tracing the point of origin of our foods.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) have sought to enact the bill for more than 10 years. It was simultaneously re-introduced in both chambers of Congress last week.
Durbin has been widely quoted as saying the current food safety system, “has turned into a food fight among dozens of federal agencies.”
DeLauro’s office issued a statement Feb. 15, stressing concern that warnings about the Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter products were not issued until last week when the first consumer became ill in August 2006.
The outbreak has grown to almost 300 cases in 39 states since August, showing the difficulty in identifying the source, DeLauro’s statement said.
“This demonstrates the need for a stronger commitment of resources toward the research necessary to identify sources and the causes of food-borne illness,” DeLauro said.
Interest in the lawmaker’s position has increased following the Government Accountability Office’s recent placement of food safety on its list of critically flawed federal programs.
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Communications Specialist
142 Printing Services / Oklahoma State University
405.744.3651
Stillwater, OK 74078
janet.reeder@okstate.edu
Oklahoma State University, U.S. Department of Agriculture, State and Local Governments Cooperating: The Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service offers its programs to all eligible persons regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, gender, age, disability, or status as a veteran, and is an equal opportunity employer.
